There is a relatively new dynamic emerging in the
news industry, and it’s becoming increasingly clear that editors and
publishers alike need to address the issue sooner rather than later if
they are to retain control of the editorial process in newspapers,
Radio/TV outlets and on electronic networks.

The trend can be described as "real-time
news," and it involves the practice of just dumping news and
information on the public nearly instantaneously via the latest advances
in communications and computer technology.

The Internet and Cable/Satellite TV networks are
the primary distribution channels for this phenomenon. Our communications
infrastructure has become so ubiquitous, and so fast, that the public has
become accustomed to immediate, unlimited access to information –
whether it is video, audio or text material.

Examples of this trend abound: when the U.S.
starts bombing Belgrade or Baghdad, the public sees live video of the
bombing campaign. Ken Starr issues a public document incriminating the
president of the United States, and he does so in a digital format which
allows transmission of the text of the document around the world in
literally seconds.

The danger is not so much the release of the
information (though that remains a debatable issue); the most immediate
problem is that newsmakers are learning how to manipulate technology (and
therefore the news process) to achieve their ends.

In Yugoslavia, Slobodan Malosevic makes sure the
world sees live telecasts of the NATO bombing raids in Belgrade (and NATO
tries to bomb his television facilities to prevent him from doing so).

When the U.S. bombed the Chinese embassy in
Belgrade, the Chinese government organized students to demonstrate at the
U.S. embassy in Beijing and allowed the demonstrations to be telecast,
live, around the world. In a deft countermeasure, U.S. Ambassador to
China, James Sasser, regained partial control of the PR initiative (in the
U.S. anyway) by giving live telephone interviews to the Sunday morning
talk shows in America, describing how he and his staff had become hostages
to the Chinese students.

Until the 1990’s, news was presented to the
public in a relatively reasoned format at a more measured pace. Reporters
tracked down the facts and wrote or produced a story; editors reviewed the
stories and made a number of key editorial decisions before sending the
story onto the printing presses, or out on the airwaves for eventual
consumption by the public.

The traditional editorial time-line, however, has
been foreshortened -- to the point where the time-line itself is in danger
of disappearing. And as the time-line vanishes, we are losing control of
such issues as fairness, balance and fundamental accuracy.

The Real-Time Evolution

In fact, the phenomenon of real-time distribution
of news and information is not an especially new one. The concept began in
the 1970s, when the financial markets began using electronic channels to
distribute pricing information. Prior to then, the financial industry used
the equivalent of native drums to gather information about the markets.
The stock market had its ticker, where stock trades were distributed on
endless roles of paper tape. In the bond and foreign exchange markets,
clerks kept up to date with the markets via telephone headsets and
displayed prices of fungible financial instruments (bonds, currencies)
with chalk on blackboards.

Then the technology revolution began to unfold.
Neil Hirsch was a clerk in a brokerage house who used an electronic
terminal network to collect and distribute bond prices. He called his
invention Telerate because it used telephone lines to link electronic
terminals on traders’ desks with a centralized computer. Hirsch’s
primitive electronic network started in New York, and then spread to
Chicago, San Francisco, and later London, Tokyo and other international
financial centers. The Telerate network broadcast bond prices almost
instantaneously to other bond traders, and the network dubbed its prices
as "real-time" market information.

In the foreign exchange sector, the British news
agency, Reuters, developed a similar "real-time" network linking
foreign exchange traders around the world. The foreign exchange pricing
network rescued Reuters from near bankruptcy, and eventually transformed
the once quaint news agency into a global information gorilla.

In 1980, Ted Turner came up with the concept of an
all news television network, which transmitted video news via hard-wired
cable and satellite links. There were a lot of skeptics in the early days
of CNN, but Turner 's 24-hour a day news network has become an institution
which is not only drawing competitors; at times it finds itself competing
with the U.S. government in terms of providing intelligence to breaking
news.

The Internet has become the latest distribution
channel for real-time news. As the bandwidth of electronic networks grew
ever wider -- and the audience on all of the electronic networks grew
larger and larger -- the time it takes to distribute a news story to tens
of millions of people has dropped from days, to hours, and then to seconds
(and even fractions of a second).

In the third and concluding volume of his memoirs,
Henry Kissinger notes the technological revolution has had a distinct
effect on the conduct of foreign policy. While Kissinger directs his
comments towards presidents and statesmen, his thoughts are also germane
to the news industry, as the following excerpts indicate:

"The speed and scale of modern
communications will make it increasingly difficult for future historians
to render an accurate account of contemporary international
relations.….Technology has revolutionized the conduct as well as the
content of diplomacy. Preparing a document, reproducing it, then
distributing it within minutes all over the world is now accomplished at
the touch of a button….Future historians will always be in danger of
becoming confused not only by the profusion of documents, but also by
their character. Detailed instructions are now relayed so easily and
quickly that Presidents and foreign ministers prefer to focus their
communications on the nuts and bolts of day-to-day diplomacy rather than
on its purpose….Tactics and domestic politics substitute for strategy
and whatever strategy exists is confined to the minds of a top few
policymakers, who, fearful of leaks, rarely articulate or share it.
History turns into an account of the immediate and sensational, devoid
of historical perspective or long-term vision."

In his memoir about the first term of the Clinton
Administration, George Stephanopoulos described at least three different
occasions (Haiti, Somalia and Iraq) when President Clinton formulated a
policy position -- and then turned to CNN to track the ramifications of
his actions.

When Clinton launched missiles against Baghdad in
retaliation for an assassination attempt against George Bush, "CNN
served as the president's intelligence that night," according to
Stephanopoulos. Later, when the Russian Parliament was being bombarded by
artillery from anti-Yeltsin protestors, the Clinton White House kept track
of those events via CNN. "Once again, CNN beat the CIA,"
Stephanopoulos wrote in his book (almost matter of factly).

Who Controls the News?

In other words, those who shape global events are
now using of the new communications technology as a policy tool. Their
acknowledgement of the role of technology in the conduct of their public
affairs should serve as a red flag to editors around the world, in print,
broadcast and electronic mediums. Editorial vigilance is necessary to
guard against public officials using the media to undertake questionable,
or even illegal, activities.

For despite all the new technology, one phenomenon
is unlikely to change: a free press is the ultimate guardian of a free
society, and editors and publishers must adapt to the technological
revolution if they are to play a meaningful role in the world they cover.

And that requires that news managers exercise some
control over the release of information flowing from events in the public
domain. Is the information bona fide? Is it factually correct? Is it
appropriate for public release from a national security perspective? Is it
appropriate for release according to other, legitimate ethical standards?
These are all very tough questions, but the role of news managers is to
develop judgements based on their previous experience in managing the flow
of news and information into the public domain.

Some critics believe that many senior managers in
the news industry are failing in their jobs by avoiding these hard
judgements. It's much easier, these critics say, for reporters, editors
and producers to simply wave these critical issues off the table and dump
news and information on an unsophisticated and even unsuspecting public.

That's not to say that there isn't legitimate
debate about how to deal with the real-time phenomenon. There are
different schools of thoughts on how to deal with the ramifications of the
technological revolution. Some news executives are concerned at the loss
of control they are experiencing over their information products through
the release of too much information. A second school of thought, however,
maintains that democracy demands that citizens have the choice to be fully
informed about events as they transpire -- and it's up to the public to
make decisions about what information is germane -- and what is not.

It’s not clear which school is correct, but we
can expect that the debate about the issue will continue – and even
expand. As it should.